HARDINESS of tree is everywhere indispensable to success in fruit-growing. It is probable that fewer varieties, especially of pear-trees, are entirely hardy in the Mississippi Valley than in New York and New England; for climate and soil combine here to test varieties more severely than in most portions of the country. Our rich soil and warm autumns tend to late growths, and we are liable to sudden and extreme depressions of temperature which the seaboard States several degrees farther north rarely or never experience. Many varieties of pears are, in consequence, faulty here, which bear a good reputation in New England. This is, in many cases, due to their defoliation in summer, and second growth, in September and October, of wood so immature as to require the most gentle descent to the cold of winter to escape fatal injury.

My experience with pears the past season has impressed me with the importance of greater caution than has been usual with us in selecting varieties for the orchard. On the 11th of December last, the mercury went

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down to ten degrees below zero at this place. This was a lower point than had been reached at any time in winter for eight years, at least with one exception; and this terrible close of an autumn quite favorable to late wood-growth tried most severely the hardiness of all young, fast-growing trees. The result in my own orchard, among a hundred and fifty varieties, all young trees, shows about forty kinds which seem perfectly hardy; nearly an equal number so tender as to be killed outright, or fatally damaged; while the balance exhibit various degrees of injury, but promise to recover.

Thinking that lists of these classes may be indications of some value to other planters, I herewith give the results, with some of the more important varieties. These trees had mostly been three years planted, in good clay loam without any manure, and had been well but not excessively cultivated. Among those which successfully endured this trial were Tyson, Ott, Belle Lucrative, Howell, Kingsessing, Clapp's Favorite, Moyamensing, Doyenné Boussock, White Doyenné, Onondaga, Stevens's Genesee, Lodge, Parsonage, Merriam, Heathcote, Flemish Beauty, Urbaniste, Beurré d'Anjou, Sheldon, Dix, Duchesse d'Angoulême, Lawrence, McLaughlin, Glout Morceau, Vicar, and Easter Beurré.

Of those badly injured I will name Doyenné d'Été, Golden Beurré, Julienne, Seckel, Beurré Bosc, Paradise d'Automne, Marie Louise, Forelle, Baronne de Mello, Canandaigua, Zoar Beauty, Jaminette, Chaptal, Catillac, Beurré Clairgeau, and Winter Nelis.

Between the last two classes, I find the following important kinds : Bartlett, Brandywine, Ananas d'Été, Beurré Giffard, Bloodgood, Osband's Summer, Kirtland, Beurré Superfin, Buffum, Louise Bonne of Jersey, Napoleon, Beurré Langelier, Beurré Gris, Columbia, Epine Dumas, Josephine de Malines, and Dana's Hovey. I am aware that some varieties named above as tender, or badly injured, were not seriously damaged at other points in this neighborhood, where they had not been much cultivated, or were in bearing, or from any cause had made very little growth the previous season ; but I think planters will be wise to rely mainly upon kinds which endure our climate under the most trying conditions.

April 25, 1869.

THE ZINNIA FAMILY: THEIR HISTORY AND CHARACTER.

By JOSEPH BRECK, Ex-President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society.

LOUDON informs us, that this old denizen of the flower-garden was named after Godfrey Zinn, who published in 1757 a Catalogue of Plants of the Garden of Gottingen, &c. It is placed in the Linnæan system in the class syngenesia (in allusion to the peculiar union of the anthers), and in the order superflua. This order is characterized by producing two kinds of florets in the same common calyx; those in the ray styliferous only, and those in the disk tubular and perfect. The species are showy ornaments to the flower-garden; chiefly annuals, originally from Mexico and some parts of North America. They have a look like the marigold, with an imbricated, round-scaled calyx, and five or more remarkably persisting broad rays. The receptacle is chaffy, and the pappus consists of two awns. Besides these, now well known in every garden, three or four beautiful species (some of them perennial), not yet published, have been discovered near the Rocky Mountains.

In one of these the flowers are yellow, so says Nuttall; but the perennial species have not yet been introduced, to my knowledge. Zinnia multiflora, or many-flowered, was introduced into England in 1770, from some part of North America. I became acquainted with this species seventy years ago in my mother's flower-garden, where it was commonly seen in company with the old-fashioned marigold. The flowers are of a persisting character. The rays are a dull red, turning to a faded brown, and so continue; while the disk, which at first is flat, projects as the florets successively bloom, until it forms a cone, when it presents an unsightly appearance. This species has long since been discarded from the flower-garden. Zinnia pauciflora, or few-flowered, was introduced from Peru in 1753, and has a great resemblance to Z. multiflora, except the small number of flowers, and the color, which is a brownish yellow: this has also gone into exile with its relative. Zinnia elegans was introduced from Mexico in 1796, and is a great improvement on the exiled members of the family. The flowers are much larger, and, when they commence blooming, are very ornamental ; but as the florets of the disk begin to form seed, and it assumes the conical

shape, the rays fade, and the disk has a dry and husky appearance, which is characteristic of all the species: the flower is then far from being ornamental.

Zinnia hybrida is of more recent introduction, and was introduced in 1818 from South America: the flowers a brilliant scarlet. From this and Z. elegans have been produced all the beautiful colors now well known to

this family, consisting of scarlet, crimson, orange, yellow, purple, and white.

Ten years ago, we did not even dream that a flower so rigid and uncouth in its last stages would ever be so transformed as to take its place among the so-called florist's flowers; but so it has, showing what can be done by the patience and skill of the lover of flowers.

It is within the last twelve or fifteen years, that a florist in France perceived on zinnia plants, flowers that had doubled their ray petals. The idea was suggested, that, if they had thus overstepped their natural character, there was a probability that a full double flower might be produced. He carefully saved the seed of these plants, and found, in a few years, that what had been a probability was a certainty, and, to his great joy, beheld a perfectly double flower; and soon found, that, as in the parents, they sported into all their beautiful colors and shades, excepting white.

A box of these novelties was sent from Paris to the London Horticultural Society, on exhibition, without the name. At first they were supposed to be dahlias, being as large and perfect as that flower; but, upon closer examination, they were surprised to find them to be double zinnias. Soon the seed was in the possession of every florist. No pure double white zinnia has yet been seen in this country; but it is in existence, and in possession of Messrs. Vilmorin, Andrieux, & Co., florists, of Paris, as I was informed by an agent of that house. They are now accumulating a stock of this seed, so that we shall soon add to our collection of these brilliant colors a pure white zinnia. The double as well as the single flowers lose their perfection and beauty in the last stages of their inflorescence, unless they are very double, and, even then, they indicate the source from which they sprang. They produce but very little perfect seed, which should not be sowed until the last of May; for if it lie long in the ground when the ground is cold and wet, it will perish, and not vegetate.

The little yellow-birds make sad havoc with this flower when seeding. They will pick the flowers all to pieces to get the seeds, of which they seem to be very fond, and the ground under the plants is often covered with the fragments of the flower: they commit the same ravages on the marigold family; but who can blame them?

Zinnia Haageana. - A beautiful species, with smaller and more delicate